A No-Nonsense Beginners’ Guide to Infographics

Infographics (a portmanteau of information and graphics) are a visually attractive way of displaying (often complex) data. An infographic can display a whole variety of data, from charts and graphs to timelines and flow diagrams.

No problem! There are plenty of websites requiring little to no technical knowledge that can generate infographics out of your data.

Sites such as infogr.am, visual.ly and ease.ly provide a foolproof online interface for personalising a variety of pre-made layouts with your data. For interactive timelines, try Timeline JS or Wordle if you’re interested in creating ‘word clouds’.

Have a think about what data would be interesting to your audience. For example, local councils would probably have plenty of interesting stats at their fingertips, from local budget numbers to crime figures to opinion polls. You could even share data from a recent consultation in an infographic.

However, interesting data may also be seen as “stuff you shouldn’t be sharing”, so remember to think carefully about the potential consequences of releasing that data to the public.

Obey the laws of statistics

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Your infographic can be the most wonderfully-designed thing in the world, but disobey the laws of statistics and it becomes nothing more than a pretty picture. Irrelevant and misinterpreted data can be confusing for your audience and potentially embarrassing for you.

If you’re looking for a non-mathematical, common sense guide to mainstream statistics, I’d recommend having a read through of The Tiger That Isn’t.

Be sensible about colour schemes and fonts

In a similar way that having a great design and bad data is unhelpful, it’s equally problematic if you have great data and a bad design. Infographics need to be aesthetically pleasing to increase the likehood of being shared, but the design should make sure the data can be understood easily.